Atomium Comic Strip Prizes

This year for the second time, the Comic Festival presented the 9th edition of the Atomium Comic Strip Prize.

Comic strips are an art that has fallen from favour in recent years. It has often proved difficult for professional comic strip artists to make a living from their work. visit.brussels, organizer of the Brussels Comic Strip Festival, highlights the city's support for creativity and brings together existing initiatives in awarding mainly cash prizes that will help the winners to finance their work.

Building on its success in 2017, the Comics Festival was reliving the experience in 2018, while expanding the concept even further: no less than 9 prizes have been given out for a total amount of 115,000 euros. The sponsor of the second awards ceremony is French screenwriter Fabien Vehlmann, author of the series "Seuls" and "Spirou and Fantasio".
This time, two new awards have been added to the Atomium Comic Prize list: The Atomium Citizen Comic Prize and the Atomium Bronzen Adhemar Prize for comics in Dutch.

Discover the winning comic books of 2018 in participating bookstores

The winners of the Atomium Comic Strip Prizes 2018

The Raymond Leblanc Prize for Young Artists

Prize: €20,000 in cash, as well as a publishing contract with the Lombard publishing house or Futuropolis.
Aim: A comic contest to reward the work of a young artist who has published no more than two comic books.
Partner: The Raymond Leblanc Foundation
Winner: Maurane Mazars voor Tanz !

The Wallonia-Brussels Federation Comic Strip Prize

Prize: €10,000
Aim: The prize is awarded for the original and innovative work of one or more authors from the French Community of Belgium.
Partner: Ms Alda Gréoli, Minister of Culture for the French Community of Brussels
Winner: Aurelie William Levaux

The Spirou Comics Adventure Prize

Prize: €15,000 in cash and publication in the SPIROU magazine.
Aim: The Spirou prize for a fun adventure comic strip is awarded to the author or authors of a 44 page fun adventure story in the tradition of the great series published in the Spirou magazine since it began in 1938.
Partner: The Spirou Magazine
Winner: Adrien Lemasson for Tim et la fin du monde

Prize: €20,000 of advertising space and a strong editorial presence.
Aim: the RTBF rewards a genre that resonates with the audience of the PREM1ÈRE channel.
Partner: RTBF (Belgian French Community Radio-TV)
Winner: Halim for Petite maman (Dargaud)

Prize: €20,000 of advertising space and a strong editorial presence.
Aim: To annually reward the work of a person who has excelled in portraying the world around us in the form of a comic report.
Partner: Le Soir
Winners: Jérôme Tubiana and Alexandre Franc for Guantanamo Kid (Dargaud)

The Atomium Citizen Comics Prize (new in 2018)

Prize: €5,000 in cash
Aim: To reward comic drawings that call for an ethical and social reflection and that take on a positive, constructive and generous approach to current social issues.
Partner: Le Cœur à lire
Winners: Zidrou and Aimée de Jongh for L’obsolescence programmée de nos sentiments (Dargaud)

The Bronzen Adhemar Prize for Dutch Comics (new in 2018)

Prize: €10,000
Aim: The prize goes to a Flemish author for a specific piece of work or for their work as a whole.
Partners: an initiative from Stripgids, with the support of the Government of Flanders and the city of Turnhout.
Winner: Jeroen JanssenSource